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She tried not to think about Abby or Josh or anything else but staying calm as she drove to the school. Seeing her son’s happy little face helped push out her lingering frustration.
“Hi!” He practically chirped out the word as he climbed into his booster seat in the back.
He carried the usual post-school armload of assorted things. His backpack, which had to be empty since he held abinder, a notebook, and his lunch box. He’d slung his sweatshirt over his shoulder and threw it all on the seat next to him.
“How was your day?” She braced for the answer because it usually came at her at record speed.
“Evan is a bully, but I ignored him and did my running in gym.” He waved to a group of friends still waiting for pickup on the sidewalk with the teacher. “My sandwich got wet, but I ate it anyway.”
“How did—”
“Do you think Uncle Josh is coming over this weekend? He said he’d help me build a birdhouse and Dad could watch.”
She hoped not, but with her luck, yes. “Maybe.”
“What about Rachel?”
That got Elisa’s attention. “Do you want Rachel to come over?”
“Yeah, she’s nice.” He continued to stare out the window. “She liked my shirt.”
“Which one?”
“The green one.” He reached his leg out and tapped his foot against the vent in the back of the front seat armrest. “Can I have a snack?”
“Apples and breakfast bars are in the holder in front of you.” She tapped the front passenger seat.
“It’s not breakfast,” he said two seconds before he ripped into the box of bars.
She glanced at him in the rearview mirror, sending one of thosemomlooks he said he knew meant business. “Careful, please.”
She eased out from the circular driveway in front of theschool. Other cars waited in the line behind her and a few parents and care providers who didn’t mind going last parked in the lot across the street. She gave the lot a quick look . . . then did a double take.
There she was. The redhead. Again.
They looked at each other for a second, then the woman put her head down and got into a sleek sedan in the front row.
“Oh, hell no,” Elisa whispered.
“You can’t say that word.” Nathan’s scolding came out over a mouthful of granola bar. “Whoa!”
A car horn honked as she cut left through the line and drove into the parking lot instead of leaving the school, as the pickup rules stated. Screw the rules. She refused to keep doing this—whateverthiswas—with this woman.
Nathan yelped with excitement as if he were enjoying a roller-coaster ride. A woman in an oncoming car did a different kind of yelling, but her car windows were up. Elisa waved, but she knew she’d get a call or letter from the school about this later. Right now, she didn’t care.
Going too fast, she turned into the parking lot and pulled perpendicular behind the redhead’s car, blocking her exit. “There.”
“Mom!”
She opened her door but stopped to point a finger at Nathan. “Do not even think of leaving that seat. I will be right back.”
“Who is she?”
Elisa closed the door on Nathan’s question and walked over to the driver’s side of the sedan. The redhead didn’t make eyecontact. She had her phone in her hand and faced forward. A few people watched them and the two teachers helping with pickup kept sneaking glances in Elisa’s direction.
She ignored all of it. Her heart thudded in her chest and she had to breathe deep to drag in air around the clog in her throat, but she stood her ground. Once she locked her car doors, trapping Nathan where he was, her sole focus was on the mysterious redhead.
She lifted her hand and saw how it shook.Not now. She silently begged her body to hold on until she figured this out. If this woman was stalking her or Harris, she wanted to know now.
